Ways Your Mother Lied to You About Wheels On the Buses

Total travel time to and from Wheels on the bus song for baby: about a number of hours.



"The first day I went to school, I was like, do I genuinely wish to do this? " Freeman, 16, said. But the ride swiftly became routine, and now Freeman doesn't hesitate to shoot down the notion of trading the two-hour day at the science and technology magnet school for that 10 minutes it would take him to get to his local high school.

It had been that students with the longest bus rides were those that have rural addresses. Today, however, an increasing number of of the longest school bus commutes participate in suburban students, willing to put in the time in order to attend a prestigious magnet classes.

"Oh, I think it's worth the cost, " said Freeman, a senior at Thomas Jefferson. "I'm very happy at this school. It's one particular opportunities that comes to maybe a lucky few students. "

Sometimes the capacity of the trips that students are going to endure even surprises adults.

"I'll show you when I felt it -- on that rare occasion when kids miss the bus, and I am just taking them home. I'm contemplating, 'Wow, "' said Montgomery Blair High school graduation Principal Phillip Gainous. Long commutes are getting to be routine at the Silver Spring high school graduation, one of the largest in Montgomery and home to magnet programs in communications and scientific disciplines that lure students from across the county.



School officials across the region strain to keep regular, in-boundary school bus rides under 1 hour. But that has no having on magnet school commutes, that easily stretch longer. Students learn to make the best of this: One recent morning, a number of Thomas Jefferson freshmen huddled around a tiny light clamped to a math textbook to review for a test. Another scholar strummed a guitar. Still others dozed to music from other portable CD players.

Montgomery Blair once offered a pal program that gave far-flung students safe places to settle if the roads were tied up with bad weather or accidents. But the program died out of lack of use, Gainous stated. "We don't do that anymore, because the kids are accustomed to traveling or waiting on the school, " he said. "They only sleep or do their homework. "

Grace Chung, a 15-year-old Thomas Jefferson sophomore, tries to squeeze using some study time on the shuttle bus. But she's seen far more intricate maneuvers: A friend once made an entire poster for spirit week, including glitter, during the commute to be able to school.

"She had her glue and her glitter. She would pour it out on the glue and then pour it the government financial aid the jar -- I don't think she spilled a single little bit of glitter, " she said.

Grace's foundation school is Chantilly. Like any traffic-hardened veteran, she separates her commuting time into "good visitors days" and "bad traffic nights. "

"Sometimes if traffic is basically good, we get there in 8 a. m., " a trip of about a half-hour, Leeway said. "And sometimes we arrive right before the bell rings" with 8: 30. On a recent icy morning that spawned many car accidents and backups, Grace caused it to be to school at 9: 25.

She sees the positives. "You make a great deal of friends on the bus. I can take homework that I don't learn how to do and say, 'Here, assist me. ' There's some math whizzes for the bus. It's like study corridor. "

In Prince William Region, 18-year-old Alan Hogan's hour-long bus ride is more like those of old: No magnet school, he just lives inside rural, western part of your county. The stars are still bright when Hogan gets around the bus each morning. He attends Stonewall Jackson High school, near Manassas. Prince William is creating a high school for western-area pupils, but it won't open until 2004.

Until then, the kids just get used to the journey.